Cranial Characteristics of Gorillas and Chimpanzees

Abstract

IN NATURE of Feb. 7, 1925, p. 195, Prof. Raymond Dart announced the discovery of a fossil skull of a young anthropoid ape which had been found in a lime-stone quarry at Taung, l3eehuanaland. This discovery brought to light an extinct kind of great anthropoid, which differed from the three living genera—the gorilla, chimpanzee, and orang—in having a long or dolichocephalic skull. After having read Prof. Dart's account, Prof. L. Bolk, of Amsterdam, drew attention to the skull of a gorilla in his collection which was quite as dolichocephalic as the Taungs skull (Kon. Akad. van Wetensch. Amsterdam, 1925, vol. 28, No. 2, p. 1). In the same year, Prof. Wingate Todd, of the Western Reserve IJniversity, Cleveland, Ohio, informed me that the accepted idea of round-headedness or brachycephaly prevailing amongst gorillas was wrong, several skulls in his collection being dolichocephalic.